Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (February 27, 2025) – from left to right, Captain of the US Navy Heather Grote, head doctor of the American Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs; Brig. General John Andrus, joint staff surgeon; And Dr. Stephen Ferrara, acting assistant secretary for the defense of health affairs, listens to the Captain of the US Navy Tammy Services, director of the American naval hospital Guantanamo Bay, is a visit to the emergency service. The services and members of its executive steering committee guided the visit to present the departments and capacities of the hospital in Ferrara and its delegation. (Photo of the American Navy by Emily McCamy)
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For the military health system, preparation is a strategic imperative to ensure the domination, survival and resilience of war chargers, said the acting assistant for the defense for health affairs, Dr. Stephen Ferrara.
“The preparation cannot be secondary. You cannot prepare at the last minute. You cannot collapse for the preparation. With regard to the success of the mission, the preparation is everything,” he said.
During her first two months of work, Ferrara delivered this message during the floor, visits to hospitals and military clinics, the town hall forums and the interviews.
“We are the only American health care system that goes to war,” said Ferrara, who has deployed four times when he has served as an American navy surgeon.
“When American sons and girls are downstream and endangered, we honor the pact that we have done with them and with their parents – who should become sick or injured, they will receive fast and effective medical care all over the world. This is the confidence we have.
Its priorities for the military health system are to increase the lethality of the combatant, to maintain the skills of the medical force and to guarantee accessible, high quality and sustainable care.
“We have to support the fighter, support our skills and strengthen our channel,” he said. The chain to which it refers is the continuous evolution and the modernization of the health care system to improve access, quality and safety.
“If we support, support and strengthen, this is how we build a system that will fight and win, because fundamentally, that’s what our work is: fighting and winning,” he said.
“We do it by having a ready medical force, so that we can provide strong battlefield care and keep firearms in the fight,” he said. “We do this by maintaining the medical force ready to use, because preparation is a medical imperative as it is a moral imperative.”
Ferrara noted that part of her role is to transmit to the defense secretary Pete Hegseth how MHS is a great force in his priority of strength of force. He explains that the MHS optimizes combatant performance by supporting the preparation of military force and people responsible for their care and their recovery.
The Budget of the Defense Health Program, which represents this year is around 61 billion dollars, represents around 7% of the Pentagon front -line budget. “I show the secretary how we take this high-level budget and how we use it to make the strength as dead, more capable of fighting and winning,” he said.
“It starts with the maintenance of the ready medical force,” he said. “We must make sure that each member of the team – of the surgeon who exercises a scalpel, to the logistics that bought the scalpel, from the nurse who transfuses the blood, to the team who runs the blood banking – is at the top of their game. A team ready to go downstream to fight and win.”